Pop on over here for a glance into the mind of a dismally boring Naturalist/Conservationist aka Me.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

On another pony, Making food, and a New York weekend

I know I say this about every post with photographs, but this time I really mean it.

This on is EPIC. A DOOZEY. I have photos from FEBRUARY I haven't posted and then as many as I could narrow down from my 300 ish photos from New York. I have 120 photos in my blog folder to out on here. That number may be cut down, but don't count on it. So...enjoy if you can. This one is going to seem never ending.

First things first. I couldn't post these before because they were part of a birthday gift for Kirsti. But here they are, the work in progress photos of War Pony from the My Little Apocalypse Pony. If you remember this post, I already made Pestilence for a co-worker. That pony was made fro an old recycled pony. This one was made from a blank white pony purchased from Amazon. So, in the interest of making this post as text-less as possible, lets move on to the pictures.

Stage 1: Coloring the hairI used red marker. It worked fairly well but still rubs off a little bit.Stage 2: The eyes-pinkish with black eyeliner like outlining. Easy peasy.Stage 3: The first coat. It took me a while to get the coloring to be what I thought was just right. Lots of mixing. Ew. At this stage she just looks bloody.Stage 4: The second coat-THERE it is. Looking good so far.

Stage 5: The armor-This was a tough one. I wasn't sure how I was going to get her to look like this . But I found some gold puff paint that, when dried, worked pretty well. A little sparkly but close.Last Stage: The symbol. I needed something easy because I am NOT an artist. So I went with the Native American symbol for War. Nice and simple.Finished product: front shotFinished product: Angle shotFinished product: side shot-The lighting on this chair was pretty great!

So there she is. In all her war glory. The only this she was missing was the ability to breathe fire.

Moving on. I baked at one point. It was a grand baking day, and I am going to include some photos of that wonderful day

Here is everything laid out in preparation.

This is the infamous Kitchen Aid NOT TO BE USED

Oh, Em. I LOVE the apron you made me! And is that the BYU hoodie Kirsti got me? I think it is!

And this, my friends, it my made from scratch pizza sauce. Turned out pretty good, if I say so myself, and no sugar added.

Speaking of sugar, man did these cookies look good before they came out of the oven. I can't say the same for after.

This is the end result of the pizza

And the wonderfully wonderful result of the Good Morning Muffins (thanks again Em!)

And this is all the resulted of what I mad. Two giant muffins, a bag of leftover candy, a bag of candy bar cookies and at least two dozen muffins!

And the resulting mess.

This is unrelated, but here is an awesome breakfast I made for myself earlier in the month of February. Choco-chip pancakes, fruit salad, fried egg, and fried potatoes. Woo!

Also completely unrelated...The snow on a bush next to the porch.

Also unrelated, I can't get over how lovely it is down this road sometimes.

Okay, now it's time for the really LOOOOOOOOOONG batch of photos. The ones I took from NYC. I'm telling you, I weeded through a lot of these.

Lets begin.

We stayed at the Day's hotel on 94th street in Manhattan. This is the view out the window from said hotel. We heard gunshots the first night.

As I began to walk away from Broadway and towards Central Park, the buildings got more residential, and therefore nicer looking. Except for the blue tarp to the right.

Pah! This made me smile. I want to grow a squid out of a flower pot!

This didn't make me smile. But it made me wonder what happened. And why nothing has eaten it yet.

The only reason I included scaffolding is because one of my strongest memories of NYC from 1999 was all the scaffolding on the streets and feeling afraid it was going to fall on my head. Things have not changed that much.

This is a Swedish Marionette house in Central Park. I really wanted to see a show but wasn't able to because of my choir rehearsal.

This is a view of the distant city across a pond from the steps of "Belvedere castle"

And the Plaque. Now I can't remember why it was originally built but it is now a weather observatory.

There it is.

Then we have the monument in front of the Museum of Natural History. It is going through a kind of face lift. The front of it is covered with designed tarps to try and hide the fact. A lot of construction was going on amongst the displays as well.

I liked this. It was in the entrance lobby.

A dinosaur. It didn't come to life. That only happens at night.

aHey look! I say Moose fighting up close in Maine!I thought it was funny that in the Bobcat display they had it stalking a poor helpless bunny.

Giant Native American canoe.

Largest piece of Stibnite on public display. How cool is that? It looks alien.

My favorite creature in the whole wide world. Look how cute it is! I want to study these. For real.

Sequoia!

Speaking of giant, that is one huge mosquito.

More giant bugs! Ahhhhh! So cool.

My favorite display was the biodiversity room. It showed only a small glimpse of the species that are found on the earth.

More biodiversity.

Next to orchids, this flower is my favorite in the world. It's HUGE and SMELLY and CARNIVOROUS! How cool is that?

Ahhh! Octopus!

The only extra exhibit I paid to see was the butterfly room. I can't help it. If a place has butterflies, I'm there. Don't ask me the species. I haven't looked them up yet.

Ooooh.

Wow, look how big that moth is! Oh, you can't tell because there is no scale comparison? Well, it's bigger than a larger handed person's hand.

Cocoons.

AHHH! Eyespots!

This lovely specimen WANTS you to remove the butterflies from plants. He's a bully butterfly.

See if you can count how many butterflies are in this photo.

I like this one because you can see the plant through it's spots.

Count the butterflies again!

Right as I was going to leave, this one landed on my coat!

Here it is on my hand. Woo! Success.

And the ever and always lovely monarch.

Um, these are giant lizards eating a hog. Woah. I didn't know they did that.

This kind of weirded me out. There are amphibians that have eggs that live under their skin and when the eggs hatch the babies come out of their skin!!

Dino-bird AKA Archaeopteryx

Woah. This flying dino had a really big head.

Extinct turtle that flies. Or swims in the air.

Jaws.

I love this poor thing. The Irish Elk. Victim of runaway sexual selection. He was just trying to look handsome for the ladies! Then one day he couldn't run away from a predator with that rack.

Extinct giant armadillo!

A view from Central Park

I really am still wondering how this happened.

I really liked this building.

"Strawberry Fields" memorial. It was really crowded. I wanted to get a pic of just the memorial but there was a line the get your picture taken ON the memorial. There was a guy playing "Come Together" on an acoustic guitar. It was neat.

You could see the LAWN at central park! A lot of Maine is still covered in snow. It was so nice to see green.

One of the many Central Park Bridges. This was one of my favorites.

Bench memorial.

My other favorite bridge arch in Central Park because it is so earthy and unlike the other arches.

I know this should have been earlier but I am too lazy to move it. This is the Natural History Museum.

A view down one of the streets...maybe 87th??

Old vine covered building

View one of the Greek Orthodox church we sang at.

View two. I REALLY wanted to get pictures of the inside. There were chandeliers and it was SO beautiful! But I left my camera's memory card in my computer the night we were performing here. UG!

Rachmaninoff actually lived just a couple blocks away from the church we sang at! And we sang one of his pieces! I thought that was pretty neat.

Find the Squirrel

A stone chess board in NYC! Weeee!

Monument for Soldiers and Sailors.

This is just a small part of something someone wrote in chalk around the monument. The whole thing was as follows."As you walk across the sculpted mile that's always on display,Stop at the big white spiral-not here but on the other side it lay...Stop and take a seat...Look above your head...You can't catch me unless you read the nature to be read."

Joan of Arc monument

View of the part of the city I didn't see, across the reservoir.

Building. A church maybe.

Find the squirrel II

Bendy

Someone's house number. Isn't it cute?

For Elise, the fireplace at our old hotel. Yes, it was a days, but I am pretty sure this hotel is old and renovated. The elevators only hold 4 people! And are so SLOW! And it's all windy and hard to find your room. Like the stacks at Ellis Library.

And last, there are the stairs at R/L's house. Steep and scary. I feel like I am going to die on them some day soon.

So. There you have it. The photographed chronicles of many events in my life recently. If you want to hear more about NYC, call me. I am DONE with this entry and am going to type no more!

Reading

Anthill-E.O. Wilson

Winter World-Bernd Heinrich

Shows (Current)

Awake

Once Upon A Time

Psych

New Girl

Happy Endings

Parks and Recreation

The Office

Me A Pirate?

My pirate name is:

Mad Dog Bonney

Part crazy, part mangy, all rabid, you're the pirate all the others fear might just snap soon. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!